The Rain Goose
a brief mystical encounter with two beautiful creatures on their terms
red throated diver, photographed from my garden on the Isle of Harris
Alex was my friend and I am both lucky and privileged to be able to say that. Alex died a few years ago. I spoke at his service of remembrance and what follows is part of what I said that day.
I knew about Alex before I was in Central Scotland Police and before I actually clapped eyes on him.
In 1977, whilst still in Ross and Sutherland Constabulary and arranging a transfer to Central Scotland Police, I was approached by Henry McMillan, one of my Police Sergeants in Tain. He told me when I got to Central Scotland Police, to look up Alex McMillan, a constable in that police force. He explained that Alex was his cousin and that he was a really good person.
I did just that and found that Henry was correct. Alex was a lot of things, but importantly, he was a decent, honest human being. We hit it off immediately and found that we had one similar passion; mountains.
Over the years that followed, a lot of years, Alex and I meandered and stravaiged the length and breadth of Scotland and beyond, over mountains along glens and across rivers. Dossing in tents, that will be sleeping to those unfamiliar with my casual use of the English language, bothies, hostels, in our car more than once and, on more than one occasion, under the stars.
He was as tough as old boots, he was loyal and he was unpertubable.
While I could keep you here for hours with Alex stories, I will stay disciplined and relate two tales, one from Scotland and the other from France.
I will start in France in 1988 and the Grand Mulets Hut, situated at 3051 metres, in the middle of the treacherous Bosson Glacier, high to the south of Chamonix, on the north facing flank of Mont Blanc. It is a difficult hut to reach and involves some hours teetering across the crevasses of said Glacier.
After our meal that evening, Alex and I sat together on the crude timber deck just talking quietly and watching the sun head off for the evening, turning the sky from blue to pastel blue and then faded pink before a darker pink.
Alex and me at Grand Mulets refuge above Glacier du Bosson, Mont Blanc
We spoke that night about how lucky we were, two plods, police constables, from Central Scotland Police, living this experience.
Perhaps this poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson, explains Alex better than I can ever hope to;
“Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Next morning about two, anti meridian, we ventured out of the safety of our refuge and headed up the final slopes and ridges of Mont Blanc.
The memory I will now relate is one that will live with me to the end.
Some years after our Mont Blanc adventure, June 2006 to be exact, Alex and I were heading back to Strontian in Ardgour having climbed a mountain named Sgurr Dhomhnuill (DONALD)
It is rough high ground and as we descended through deep heather, at about 700 metres, we encountered a cluster of small lochans.
It was then we heard the unmistakable, long drawn-out, plaintive call, of a Red Throated Diver, sometimes called the Rain Goose. It is a lonely sound in a remote place, an awe inspiring, wonderful call that puts a shiver down your spine and calls on the heavens to send down rain.
Hearing that haunting song coming from a lonely and isolated lochan in the Scottish mountains is more than a simply unforgettable experience, it is somehow, spiritual.
Alex and I dropped to our knees and crawled for an age through the heather towards the call. We did not utter one word and kept as low as our old frames would allow as we heading for where we thought the Diver was.
We got to the side of the lochan, a small patch of water no more than a hundred yards wide by two hundred yards long. But it was not a diver, it was a pair of Divers, serenely gliding about in their own domain.
We were in awe. We lay in the deep heather, behind a small mound, hardly breathing, watching these beautiful creatures, blissfully unaware of our presence. After about twenty minutes or so they drifted right over to where we lay, giving us the VIP treatment I suppose. Two beautiful birds, with a distinctive red throats, their heads held haughtily high, accentuated by their slightly upturned beaks. Wonderful. We were transfixed.
After their few minutes of displaying to Alex and I, they glided away from our position, before speeding up and flapping their wings, water splashing as they sought momentum, then suddenly, free of the water, the pair gloriously rose over a patch of reeds, smoothly away from us into the west, their graceful silhouettes merging into a golden sky and low evening sun.
As we watched they disappearing from our view heading in the direction of distant Ardnamurchan.
If I can be so bold as quote a snatch of wonderful poetry from Norman MacCaig, citing a different bird, but expressing the same sentiment;
‘ I’ll never forget the eagle shaped space it left stamped in the air.’
Another wondrous moment and memory.
Thank you Alex.